In its latest project, the Chorus sine nomine, one of Austria’s leading choirs, under its founder and director Johannes Hiemetsberger has turned to a very special work: the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri in an arrangement for saxophone and three choirs a cappella by Vladimir Ivanoff. The setting of the 51st Psalm from the 1630s, which is uniquely captivating due to its simplicity, was a fixed component of the liturgy of Easter week in the Sixtine Chapel in Rome for over 250 years and soon achieved cult status because of the high penalties on its ‘pirate copy’. Here, the three-choir ensemble is in a subtle equilibrium with the young saxophonist Michael Krenn and meets any trace of sentimental mush with the respect due. Recorded in the splendid Viennese acoustic of the Otto Wagner designed Church am Steinhof, built in the first decade of the 20th c. on the grounds of the then Lower Austrian State Asylum.
